


Khoury

by QuantumAbyss_mal (lonestarjdv)



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Age Difference, Angst, Garrison is 18+, M/M, Older Keith, Older as in AARP, Pining, S8 happened (and a long time ago at that), Shiro is in denial (still), age-gap, dubcon, mentions of Curtis but he's long gone, older shiro
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-17
Updated: 2020-08-25
Packaged: 2021-03-05 00:41:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,659
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25341880
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lonestarjdv/pseuds/QuantumAbyss_mal
Summary: Keith's off the market. After 25 years, Shiro will take the next best thing.serious age gap and adults making maybe not the best choices.
Relationships: Keith/OMC, Keith/Shiro (Voltron), Shiro/OMC
Comments: 60
Kudos: 59





	1. Chapter 1

Shiro watched the simulated aircraft fly through his most difficult scenario like it was a Sunday morning drive. There was only one person in forty years to fly through his sim like this, he thought, but it couldn’t be. He would know if he was at the Garrison. There would have been a meeting, a ceremony. Even though they hadn’t spoken personally in decades. 

Since the end of the war. 

Since Shiro had gotten married. 

It couldn’t be. 

As it came to the last and most difficult maneuver of the sim, where even most experienced pilots failed, this pilot sailed through with near effortless grace. 

Painfully familiar ease.

Shiro could feel the excitement bubble up in his chest despite his efforts to tamp it down. He nearly tripped over himself stepping out of the observation room to meet and congratulate the pilot on their near-flawless run. Just some experienced pilot, he prepared himself. Someone from one of the off-planet fleets keeping their skills sharp. Maybe someone who had run the sim before.

As Shiro drew near the capsule, the pilot stumbled out of the simulator to slaps on the back from onlookers, mop of non-regulation raven hair spilling around his shoulders. The dark-haired pilot turned and Shiros’s heart jolted. This was a first year, Shiro could tell from the uniform, but he had an uncanny resemblance to the man that Shiro had been hoping for. Shiro caught his breath for the barest of moments, transported to the same place but a different time. The cadet looked up at the board and whooped, and Shiro looked as well. The cadet’s first sim run and his score was striking distance from #2, Takashi Shirogane. #1 would be a tougher number to beat, but the cadet had determination in his eyes. Shiro knew he had seen those eyes before, that unique shade of violet, that particular brand of obstinance. 

“Impressive flying,” Shiro’s voice was authoritative, softened by curiosity as he approached the familiar but unfamiliar young man. 

The cadet turned and saluted automatically when he saw the Admiral’s bars on the uniform, and then paled when he saw the glow of the signature prosthetic and the face of the man wearing it. 

“Thank you, sir. Admiral Shirogane, sir.” The Admiral was nearly a full head taller than the cadet and at least twice as broad, despite being nearly 30 years his senior. 

“At ease, cadet.” The Admiral’s voice was kind. His eyes were kind. Soft. Softer than the cadet expected. Unexpected for a man who had seen what he had seen, done what he had done, at least if the history books and television docudramas were to be believed. 

“Where’d you learn to fly like that? Or I am supposed to believe that was your first time in a sim?” 

“My parents are pilots, sir. I was born on a cruiser. I’ve been flying since before I could walk.” 

“Lots of people are born spaceside, with at least one parent who pilots even, but they can’t all fly like that. You have me at a disadvantage. You know my name, but I’m afraid I don’t know yours.” 

The cadet blushed and straightened, then held his hand out to shake. The admiral eyed his hand and then extended his own. 

The handshake was firm, the cadet’s hand soft and warm in Shiro’s. His fingers were long and slender across Shiro’s palm. “Kogane, sir. Khoury Kogane.” 

xKx

“I met your son today. He’s extraordinary. Like you.” 

The cursor blinked next to the text message. It sat unsent as it had for the last 30 minutes. He didn’t even know if this was still Keith’s number. The last message said “Congratulations." From Shiro to Keith on Keith's wedding day. Keith had responded with “Thx.” The last Shiro had heard from him for 25 years. 

Shiro hadn’t messaged him when he and Curtis had split up. He didn’t want to be that guy. The one that reaches out to his exes—when had he started considering Keith an ex?—when his marriage ends. 

Keith was still married. 

Keith had a son.

Keith had an adult son. 

An adult son with Keith’s grace and skill and eyes. 

An adult son with no attachments. 

The last thought came unbidden, and rather than turn over what it might mean, Shiro pocketed his phone, message unsent. He opened his email and proceeded to drown his thoughts in minutiae. 

That night, for the first time in a long time, Shiro dreamed of inky hair spread in a halo across his pillow and violet eyes dropping shut in ecstasy beneath him. 


	2. Playing with Fire

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Uh oh, Shiro. 
> 
> Guys, I love/hate to say it, but this is gonna be more than 3 chapters.

Shiro examined the grain of the wood through the last golden swirls of his whiskey. 

“Closing out for the night, Shiro?” 

Shiro nodded and the woman walked away to retrieve his receipt. Most days it didn’t bother him that his bartender was the only person anymore that called him Shiro regularly. 

This day wasn’t most days. 

This day, Shiro had spent most of his meetings and all of his time at the bar remembering what his name had sounded like when his best friend had said it. Whispered, yelled in the middle of battle or in a desperate search. What it sounded like when he laughed through his name, gasping for breath around the r and the o. 

Shiro collected his receipt and headed for the door as a group of off-duty cadets walked in. As he had since the flight sim performance at the beginning of the semester, he scanned the crowd for familiar jet hair. The hope that always rose in his chest like a butterfly settled again as his scan came up negative, not that it would’ve changed his course had Keith’s son been in the crowd. Shiro was conscientious about showing only as much interest as was reasonable. He might have nodded in greeting or given him a little smile, but he would have continued out the door nonetheless. 

Shiro pulled the lapels of his jacket higher against the late October chill as he stepped into the street. He nearly ran into someone whose back was hunched against the cold on the sidewalk as he turned to walk home. The person turned and the violet eyes from Shiro's dreams locked with his. A familiar-but-not-familiar voice said “Happy Birthday to you too, Dad. Yeah, tell Papa I said hi” into the phone clutched to his ear. “Gotta go. My friends are here. We’re going out tonight.” Khoury paused, listening. Shiro strained to hear the voice on the other end of the line--the voice he’d imagined for the better part of the day--but it was too distant. “Of course I’ll be safe. Love you, too.” 

The phone went dark and the cadet slipped it into the pocket of his hooded sweatshirt, a vintage Garrison deal that Shiro recognized with a jolt, the drawstring lost before Khoury was even a twinkle in someone's eye on a desert hoverbike ride that Shiro remembered as if it were yesterday. 

“Admiral!”

“Cadet.”

“Khoury.”

“Khoury. Nice sweatshirt.” 

Khoury looked down and pulled out the hem of the sweatshirt as if looking at it for the first time. He looked back up at Shiro. 

“Don’t tell my dad.” he whispered theatrically. “I stole it from him.” Shiro thought as much. He hadn’t seen the sweatshirt in decades and the lettering was faded almost beyond recognition, but the wear marks on the cuffs, where Keith would run his thumb back and forth endlessly were intact. 

“Well, he stole it from me; so I suppose that’s just karma.”

The cadet’s eyes went wide. “This is YOUR sweatshirt? Oh shit.” 

Shiro chuckled inwardly. These kids must have been pre-partying. Khoury’s expressions and gestures were more open than he normally was at the Garrison. Not that Shiro had been watching him. At least not any more than was reasonable. Khoury scrambled to remove the sweatshirt as if he was going to return it to Shiro, and Shiro put a hand on his shoulder to stop him. 

“No, please. Your dad has had it longer now than I ever did. It looks better on you anyway.” 

Khoury stopped trying to maneuver the sweatshirt over his head, pulled it back into place and blushed. “Hurrying home to hubby?”

“Oh, uh, no. I’m not married.” Shiro gave his head a quick shake.

Khoury looked scandalized. “My dad _lied_ to me. He said you were hitched.” His eyes fell to Shiro’s hand where a ring would’ve been, as if maybe he didn’t believe him. 

“I was, but it ended a while ago.” Shiro held his hand up and wiggled his fingers. No ring. His brain unhelpfully supplied that Khoury had probably been a toddler when his marriage had ended. 

Khoury looked up at Shiro through a fringe of hair. “So, boyfriend?” 

It was Shiro’s turn to blush. “Not right now, no.”

“Then you should stay! If you don’t have anywhere to be.”  Khoury reached out and grabbed Shiro’s hand with both of his. “It’s my birthday. It can be your gift to me.” 

“It’s _your_ birthday?” Shiro looked skeptical. 

“Yeah. My dad always said I was his best birthday gift ever. Now come on, you can’t say no to the birthday boy.” Khoury locked his fingers more tightly around Shiro’s hand, planted his feet, and pulled him toward the door. 

“I suppose one drink can’t hurt.” 

Khoury’s eyes were mischievous. “That’s the spirit, Admiral.” 

“Shiro. Call me Shiro.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you're looking for some sheith-y prekerb smut while you're waiting for Shiro to fall off this ledge, you can take a look here: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25479856


	3. Catching

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bad decisions incoming. 
> 
> Note the change from Mature to Explicit. We're not gonna get too crazy, but be responsible.

Shiro lingered in the afterglow of an incredible dream. It was Keith’s birthday and Keith sat in his lap while all their friends sang. He held Keith’s hand in the pocket of his sweatshirt—their sweatshirt—their fingers twined together, thumbs and fingertips brushing knuckles and pressing into palms in the tiny private space. There was an occasional squeeze that Shiro felt in his heart and his pants at the same time. He couldn’t wait to finish the singing and have Keith to himself. Everything was dark except for the flicker of the candles on the cake. The shadows of Keith’s eyelashes danced across his eyelids, his cheeks and eyes ablaze with amusement, a match for the flames. Keith had blown out the candles in one go and then leaned back and kissed Shiro in the sudden darkness like it was the most natural thing in the world to do. And it felt right. They were younger in the dream. Keith’s face unmarred by age and the ghosts of war. The rest of the dream had been a blur of kisses and hands. His fingers wrapped around Keith’s hips. Long lean fingers splayed across his chest. His name over and over in that beautiful, familiar voice. 

Shiro luxuriated in the comfort and warmth of it. The dream had been like a balm. He felt amazing. He elongated in a full body stretch and realized that someone was pressed in a warm line against his back, their arm thrown across his torso. He reached down to adjust himself and the arm was attached to a hand down the front of his boxers. As he stirred the hand started to move, stroking him with featherlight finger tips. He hummed and shifted his hips to give them better access. He could see a spill of dark hair out of the corner of his barely open eye and felt a little thrill when he heard the voice at his back, the same voice from his dream. He kept his eyes closed and focused on the touch, the sound. 

“Mmm, you’re awake.” 

“Ah” Is all Shiro could manage in response as the fingers circled him and started pumping in long, slow strokes. Shiro forced himself to breathe as the man at his back found all his sensitive places, his favorite rhythms and strokes, making him gasp with pleasure. 

“Shiro. Baby you feel so good.” hips stuttered behind Shiro and the hand tightened around him. 

“Fuck, I”m gonna come.” 

“Come for me baby. Come on Shiro.” 

Shiro’s spine locked up and his hips and shoulders arched back into the wall of muscle behind him as he pulsed until spent, long slender fingers petting over him gently then retreating when Shiro finally flinched with oversensitivity. His body shuddered with tiny aftershocks and eventually stilled. He relaxed back into the arm wrapped around him, the solid chest behind him, with a contented sigh. 

“I could not have predicted this outcome last night, Admiral, but I can’t say I’m disappointed. You turned out to be my best birthday gift ever.”

Shiro opened his eyes to turn and respond and startled out of bed, the hand forcibly dragged from his pants. Beige walls, acoustic ceiling, slick linoleum floors, institutional furniture? Shiro was standing in the middle of a…..dorm room? He closed his eyes and opened them again, hoping that somehow his surroundings would change, but no. Definitely still in the dorm room. He was too old for this shit. He looked at the kid in the bed and raised his hand to hide behind it. Oh fuck, he was born too old for this shit. He hoped maybe the prosthesis could make him disappear. 

“Expecting someone else?” in that familiar voice. 

Shiro’s first thought was that he was looking at Keith’s clone. Keith, but younger than he could possibly be. He shook his head. No, not a clone. Keith’s son. Something about last night. Keith’s birthday. The bar. The sidewalk. Khoury. Khoury’s birthday. The bar. The dream. The hand. 

Oh. Oh oh oh oh oh oh no. Oh no oh no oh no. 

“How much did I have to drink last night?” 

Khoury sat up on the bed, grabbed a shirt off the footboard to wipe his hand on, and folded impossibly long legs in front of him as he mentally counted. “3? I saw you have 3 drinks.” He tossed the shirt to Shiro. 

That would explain what was now an obvious throbbing in his temples. That’s what he got for trying to keep up with a bunch of 20-something’s. Not even? Oh no. He pinched the bridge of his nose and sat on the empty bed across from khoury’s as he tried to evaluate the extent of his fuck-uppery. 

“Ibuprofen?” 

“Yeah.”

Khoury unfolded himself and went to a dresser drawer. Shiro did /not/ check out his ass as he bent to retrieve the anti-inflammatory. At least not any more than was reasonable for a healthy adult male he told himself. It was a nice looking ass. Like his dad’s. Ugh. Shiro died a little inside. He needed to leave before he made a terrible situation much much worse. 

Khoury straightened with the pills and a bottle of water that appeared out of nowhere and Shiro knocked them back. 

He stood. “I should go.”

“Not right now, you shouldn’t.” Khoury turned to return the ibuprofen to its drawer. “Not unless you want every cadet in the dorm to see you. I went to a lot of trouble making sure we got in here sight unseen last night, but if you want to blow it now…” Khoury looked over his shoulder at Shiro. 

He nodded and sat heavily on the bed again. No, of course not. Shit, the cameras. 

“Took care of the cameras, although you’ll still want to check. We just have to wait another 20 or 30 minutes, then the dorms should clear out and I can get you out. Like you were never here.” He added, wiggling his fingers like some kind of hokey magician. 

Shiro nodded silently in agreement. That sounded like a plan. Like he was never here. Like none of this ever happened. Like he didn’t just get drunk and do god knows what, in addition to an early morning hand job, with his ex-best friend’s doppelgänger son in his dorm like a horny college kid. 

“I’ll grab breakfast while we wait.” Khoury pulled on a pair of sweats and his sweatshirt and headed for the door. Shiro bit back the reflex to reach out and smooth his hair when he pushed the hood back from his head, and a little sprout stuck up defiantly at the back. “Be back in a tick.” The door clicked behind him. 

Shiro stood and crossed the room to the desk chair, where his pants and shirt were neatly folded across the back, his jacket hanging over them both. He had a hazy memory of Khoury’s fingers dancing across the buttons and running under the heavy wool to slide across his chest and up to his shoulders. The room was warm, but Shiro shivered. His phone was resting on the desk behind the clothes. He picked it up to check the time.

10:00 am? Jesus. Thank god it was Saturday. No messages. No one looking for him. No place to be. 

There was a photo frame face down next to Khoury’s bed. Shiro sat down, picked it up, and immediately regretted it. It was a family picture. Keith front and center, his husband’s arms locked around his waist, lifting him off the ground. His face was pure joy, his 3 sons looking on from either side. An enormous space wolf was in the foreground in a play bow, tongue lolling, looking up at Keith. Kosmo? Khoury was clearly the baby and bore the most resemblance to Keith. The other brothers were larger and looked more like Keith's Galra husband. Shiro dug in his memory for the husband’s name--Tazvan. Taz? If Keith didn’t kill him, his husband or older sons probably would. They certainly looked capable. Shiro’s stomach turned.

The locking mechanism clicked again and Khoury shouldered open the door, tray of cafeteria coffee balanced in one hand, boxes of food in the other. He shut the door behind him with his foot and kicked off his sandals. Did Shiro see a hitch in his step? Oh god. 

“You got two plates. I thought we were trying to be incognito? “

“I always get two plates. Never know when you're gonna get lucky.” Khoury wiggled his eyebrows at Shiro. “Don’t want it to look weird when you do.” 

Shiro resolved that this was brilliant but terrifying reasoning. 

Khoury pushed his sweats down and stepped out of them. Shiro looked away quickly and cleared his throat, but not before getting another good look at the black bikini briefs and near-endless legs revealed by their removal.

Shiro coughed again and raised an eyebrow. “Do you get lucky often?”

“Not as lucky as I did last night.” Khoury stepped confidently into the space between Shiro’s knees and ran a hand up the outside of his thigh. He leaned in and when Khoury kissed Shiro it was languid and molten. He couldn’t help but melt into it, chasing Khoury’s lips when he pulled away. “Let's just say we both hit the jackpot a couple times last night. I’d definitely take our odds in Vegas.” Khoury looked up into Shiro’s eyes and his heart stuttered. One of Shiro’s hands moved to cover his lap and the other to grab a cup of coffee. “At ease Admiral. Not like there’s anything I haven’t seen down there.” 

He cupped Shiro’s jaw briefly, then grabbed one of the boxes of food and climbed onto the bed next to him. 

Shiro definitely did not sneak another look at Keith’s son’s ass as Khoury climbed onto the bed. He took a long draw of his coffee. It was terrible. He deserved it. 

He must have winced. “Yeah, the coffee’s not good, but it’s the best I could do on short notice.” Khoury leaned in to run his fingers through Shiro’s hair, and Shiro froze. Khoury didn’t seem to notice. He opened the lid on his box of food and shoveled a healthy amount of hash browns into his mouth. 

“You sleep alright?” he said around the mouthful of starch. After a long pause, Khoury leaned forward to look at Shiro. “Shiro?” He ran his fingers through the hair over Shiro’s ear and Shiro couldn’t help it, he leaned into the touch. Into that voice. Into his name. 

“Yeah, you really like it when I say your name.” Khoury kissed the top of Shiro’s ear, then resumed stroking his hair with one hand and eating with the other. Shiro should have taken his chances with the other cadets. Staying had definitely been a mistake. Shiro could see that now. He was an idiot. And more time in this room with Khoury was not improving anything. 

But it felt so good. 

“I figured maybe it was an incompatibility issue with humans,” Khoury started again conversationally as he ploughed through his box of food. “Maybe I just should've been pulling officers all this time.” 

Shiro was suddenly and strangely both indignant and invested in the conversation. “You think being an officer is what makes someone good in bed?”

Khoury shrugged noncommittally. “Well where did you learn?

Shiro might've taken some time familiarizing himself with galra anatomy, in the event that he had had the opportunity to lay with a galra, or part galra. But he digressed.

“As admiral of coalition forces, I take my duties very seriously. I make it a point to know everything I can about all the species in our alliance.”

“That’s over 3,000 species, Admiral. Should I be worried about rare arusian venereal diseases?” 

This should be a horrifying conversation. Why did it feel, good? Comfortable even? Was it the familiarity? Was Khoury just good at putting people at ease?

“No diseases.” Shiro smiled and crossed his index finger over his heart. 

“So, you want to do this again?”

Wow, this kid was blunt. “We can’t do this again.”

“That’s not an answer to the question I asked,” Ugh. And perceptive. Khoury put down his box of food and climbed into Shiro’s lap. “Shiro, do you want to do this again?” 

Goddammit. 

Khoury’s phone started to vibrate on the bedside table where he left it. He reached over to check who was calling and then pushed Shiro back onto the bed, scooting forward on his knees to pin him as he answered the phone. “Stay,” he mouthed as he answered the phone. It was not a request. Shiro wondered if this was common behavior if you were raised in a Galra household or if, like so many other things this morning, this was just a trait peculiar to Khoury. 

“Hi Dad.”

Shiro’s eyes flew open. He sat up to try to move off the bed and Khoury put his hand on his chest and pushed him back down. Jesus he was strong. Khoury glared down at the man more than twice his age pinned to his bed and gave him a warning look. Despite the tension Shiro could feel in Khoury’s thighs pressed tight to his hips, his tone on the phone was relaxed. 

“Yeah, I made it back safe last night. How was your night? Did you guys do anything special?”

Shiro was panicking. How long was this conversation going to be? His heart was pounding so hard he thought it might actually break his ribs. Seconds stretched to an eternity while he considered his options for escape. 

“Mhhm. That sounds like fun. I ran into Admiral Shirogane and we were just about to have breakfast.”

Shiro wasn’t sure whether to curl up and die or kill Khoury with his bare hands. His body went limp then frantic as he tried to wriggle away. 

“Do you want to talk to him?” Shiro’s head hit the wall with an audible thump as he jerked away.

“What the FUCK?” Shiro mouthed at him, but Khoury could see a change in his expression, from panicked to hopeful. Curious even. Khoury’s eyes narrowed and he looked down, away from Shiro as he considered his father’s response.

“I’m sure it’s no bother Dad.” he paused to listen. “Are you sure?” Another pause as Keith responded. “Oh. Ok.” Khoury looked back up to Shiro and he was looking down at his bellybutton, a line knit between his eyebrows. His shoulders were slumped, his body finally slack in defeat between Khoury’s legs. “Yeah. I love you, too Dad. Thanks for checking in. I’ll talk to you soon.” 

Khoury set the phone back down on the bedside table and returned to look at Shiro. 

The adrenaline had curdled into inexplicably soul crushing disappointment. He was motionless on the bed outside the shallow rise and fall of his chest, looking at the crumbling paint just below the lowest crosspiece on the headboard. 

Shiro had had his chance and screwed it up spectacularly. Why would Keith want to talk to him now, after all these years? He could have reached out a million times and didn’t. Shiro just needed to suck it up. They weren’t friends anymore. That part of his life was over. He didn’t know the man that Khoury called Dad. The person he thought he loved was long gone. He didn’t want to talk to him. That was all in the past. 

Khoury was here. 

Now. 

And he didn’t just want to talk. 

Shiro DID want to do whatever it was that they had done the night before again. Whatever it was that had made him wake up happy and relaxed. Whatever it was that had made him feel so good before his brain had turned on and told him it was all wrong. 

It felt so right. If it were wrong, shouldn’t it feel more wrong?

Khoury pressed his knees in on either side of Shiro’s hips to get his attention. “Shiro, do you want to do this again?”

Shiro paused, then looked up into Khoury’s unflinching indigo eyes. Eyes that held galaxies. Shiro could get lost in those eyes. Shiro wanted to get lost. 

“Not here.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tell me what you liked! I love comments! They make my day and motivate me to keep sharing my work! 
> 
> And now for something completely different: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25625251


	4. In the Darkness

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Time to check in with Keith. And his husband.

The only way to know that Keith was on the observation deck was to look for his silhouette against the stars--a dark spot where there should have been pinpoints of light. 

“You found me,” Keith said with a little smile, his eyes only briefly leaving the starfield as his husband settled beside him. Taz didn’t need to see Keith’s eyes to know that he was looking at the Sol System. He had spent his fair share of time looking in that direction since their baby had left for the Garrison. 

“I’ll always find you.” 

Keith enjoyed the simple call and response with his husband. It reminded him how loved he was, even if the phrase’s roots, buried so deep they rarely saw the light of day, were bittersweet. 

Taz expected Keith to be emotional the day after his first birthday without their youngest son, and Keith had not disappointed. His morning check-in with Khoury, which Taz had counted on to stabilize Keith’s mood, had somehow made him even more irritable. An attempt to broach the topic over lunch had failed spectacularly; so he’d given his love a wide berth for the rest of the day. Before bed, it was time to try again. 

“Missing someone?”

Keith nodded, eyes locked starward.

“I bet he misses you, too.” 

Keith snorted. “I dunno about that.”

“He loves you, you know that.”

Keith’s head turned to where his husband was seated next to him, eyes wide, tears shining at the corners. 

“Khoury loves you,” Taz continued, his eyes nearly fully adjusted to the low light. 

“Right,” Keith responded, his shoulders relaxing. “Right. Yeah I know.” 

Taz took Keith’s hand in both of his own and raised it to his lips. “I know it was tough with Khoury just before he left, after the accident, and it’s hard with him gone, but he really loves you.”

Keith breathed out. “Yeah, of course. I know Khoury loves me. I love him, too. No matter what,” he added at the end, a mantra that they’d repeated with one another and their children since the boys were infants. He smiled weakly and turned to look out the window again. 

“Was there something else that was bothering you?”

Keith’s shoulders slumped and he broke away from the stars again to look at Taz’s feet.

“Was it something about the phone call?” his husband pressed.

Keith looked up through his eyelashes at his husband, as if he could hide behind them. “Khoury had breakfast with Shiro this morning.” 

Ah, the Admiral. Mystery solved, Taz thought. “And that bothers you?”

“It shouldn’t.” Keith shook his head like he was trying to dislodge something. 

“It does, though, and that’s fine. What is it about Khoury having breakfast with Admiral Shirogane that bothers you.” Shiro’s proper name sounded exotic in Taz’s accented Terran Common. Unfamiliar. As it should, Keith thought. 

“I would just rather he not spend any time with him.” Keith picked at the fingers of his gloves. 

“Is this why you didn’t want Khoury at the Garrison?”

Keith sighed and reached up to wipe something from the corner of his eye. “One of the reasons. One of the more selfish reasons.”

“What makes you think it’s selfish?”

“I don’t want him spending time with Shiro because I don’t want Shiro in my life at all, and if he’s in Khoury’s life that means he’s in my life.”

“Does Khoury know that?” 

“You think asking Khoury to ‘please stay away from Shiro’ would make him /more/ likely to stay away from him?” Keith’s smile was amused.

Taz chuckled. “Yeah, you’re probably right.”

“Shiro’s not a bad person, I just….” Keith trailed off, looking down at his hands where they had come to rest in his lap. 

“You just?” Taz prompted when it didn’t seem like Keith was going to complete the thought. 

Keith took a breath and started again. “I closed that chapter of my life a long time ago, and I’m not particularly interested in revisiting it.” 

“You think that Khoury going to breakfast with the Admiral is going to make you re-examine something that you don’t want to re-examine?”

“That’s the thing,” Keith sighed, dragging the heels of his hands across his eyes. ”It already has. Why did I try to talk my son out of attending one the most prestigious flight schools in the known universe? Why didn’t I call Shiro to let him know that Khoury was going to be at the Garrison? Why do I live on the other side of a galaxy, as far as physically possible from my homeworld? Why haven’t we talked in 20 plus years? Why didn’t I even say ‘hi’ when Khoury gave me the opportunity this morning? Why did I feel like I was going to have a heart attack when he asked? If I’m over it, why am I being so weird, and if I’m not over it, Jesus, why am I not over it?”

“You still love him.” It wasn’t a question. 

“No. No!”

“You know it would be ok if you did.”

“Would it though? I thought I had some amount of self-respect.” Keith laughed at the end of the statement. It sounded hollow.

“Why would loving someone mean you don’t have any self-respect?” 

“He. Chose. Someone. Else.”

“And we only love the people who love us back in exactly the same way?” 

Silence. Then, “Apparently not? Fuck. This--this is why. I was fine. Better than fine. And now I’m mad. Again. At myself. At Khoury.” Keith’s tone changed. “At Shiro. Again. Ugh. It hurts. I hate how this feels. I feel like I’m 20-fricking years old again.”

Taz reached up and put a hand on Keith’s shoulder. 

“Fuck,” Keith cursed under his breath, looking over at his husband. “I’m so sorry babe.” 

“What for?” 

“What for, he asks.” Keith laughed again, flat and mirthless. He took a deep breath. Three counts in through his nose and three counts out through his mouth. “I’m sorry. I’ll be better tomorrow. It’ll be fine. It doesn’t mean anything. This is what’s real.” He reached up and covered Taz’s hand on his shoulder with his own. “I chose this. I made the right choice. I choose this.”

“You know you’re free to choose something else, right? I mean, certainly I’d rather you didn’t, but...” 

“Are all marriages like this?” Keith interjected. 

“Like what?”

“Do all husbands encourage their spouses to--I don’t even really know what you’re encouraging me to do?” 

Keith's husband smiled, illuminated only by the stars. “My first marriage wasn’t quite this way. I like to think this one is better. It’s certainly lasted longer.” He slid his arm from Keith’s shoulder across his back and pulled him in. Keith searched his husband’s face for any sign that he might not be genuine, but, as usual, his eyes were guileless. He tucked his head into the space between Taz’s shoulder and neck. “I love you, and I’ll do my best to support you no matter what you choose,” Taz finished before he leaned down and kissed Keith slow and deep, the way that made Keith arch up into his mouth and then melt back into his seat. “I mean, I have a vested interest in some outcomes more than others…” He shrugged as he pulled away, a uniquely human gesture he had learned from his half-human husband. 

Keith relaxed into Taz’s arms. “My life is here, with you. It’s just that I’ve spent the last twenty odd years of my life successfully cultivating a Takashi Shirogane-free zone, and now my baby is out there having birthday breakfast with him.” 

“Khoury wouldn’t have a reason to seek the Admiral out specifically, would he?”

Keith's body stiffened ever so slightly. If Taz hadn’t spent the last couple decades holding his husband, he might not have noticed. 

“I can’t think of any.” Keith shook his head haltingly against his husband’s shoulder.

Taz nodded and looked at his husband as his husband looked toward the Sol system. Life with Keith was never dull, but he had a feeling that this coming year was going to be a unique challenge. 

Good thing Tazvan liked a challenge.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's some backstory on Keith and Taz because why not? https://archiveofourown.org/works/26098720


End file.
